The post is amusing because of Gren’s tone, but for anyone who cares about the stability of the financial system, it’s likely more frustrating than anything else.

Here’s the key part:

Mr. Dimon gave as good as he got. He kicked off with repeating his apology to shareholders for the London Whale trading losses, which led to his own bonus being slashed, saying, “If you’re a shareholder of mine, I apologize deeply.”

Having offered this apology he then went on the offense. He pointed out that his bank lent money to a whole host of worthy organizations such as schools, hospitals, governments, and Italian and Spanish corporates and governments.

This line of reasoning echoes that of Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein when he told the Times of London newspaper in late 2009 that his bank was “doing God’s work.” It’s also nonsense, and it shows just how deeply inside their own bubble many bankers live these days.

Lending to “schools, hospitals, governments” is good business for JPMorgan, and that’s why they do it — which is as it should be, but it’s no reason to celebrate. And giving money to organizations which in turn help the economy, and by extension society, grow is a bank’s basic function, as anyone who’s watched It’s a Wonderful Life will tell you.

The fact that we’ve reached a point where these defenses are trotted out by some of finance’s most powerful men is ridiculous, because no one is arguing the opposite.

The criticisms, rather, are about pay structures and incentives that encourage reckless risk-taking, a system of too-big-to-fail that privatizes profit and socializes losses, and the fact that no-one at the biggest banks ever seems to be punished for malfeasance. Compare Dimon’s umbrage at mild criticism with PBS’ latest Frontline documentary, The Untouchables, about how pretty much the entire financial industry got away scot-free for its role in the mortgage meltdown.

Dimon came out of the 2008 financial meltdown with a better reputation than arguably any banker on the planet. But his attacks on proposed regulations — calling Basel III capital rules “anti-American” for example — and the London whale trading losses have stripped some of the sheen off his image. (As Felix Salmon notes there are still questions about Dimon’s role in that disaster, and still no full explanation of how the losses grew to more than $6 billion.)

His comments at Davos only go to further show that he’s just another Wall Streeter, convinced he’s doing nothing but good, and doing so mostly in the face of unfair and uninformed criticism. If even one of the ‘good guys’ of the banking industry sees the world in this way, then there really is nothing to do but start counting down to the next economy-shredding financial calamity.

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JANUARY 23, 2013 11:38 A.M.

Anthony Galise wrote:

That's telling it like it is but Mr. Murdoch might not like it.

MAY 13, 2013 2:19 A.M.

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